The Epic of Jak
by BringerOfTales
Summary: A humorous adventure in the world of Pokémon following the travels and trials of young Jak, a boy born and raised in humble Pallet Town who sets off to face the world with his Charmander.
1. Chapter 1

"Who are you again?"

"I'm Jak. We've met before."

"..."

"I live down the street from you."

"…"

"And there's only like fifteen of us in this whole town."

"Oh, that's right! Jak, is it?"

"Yeah."

"Great! Welcome to the wonderful world of Pokémon!"

"Yeah... what?"

"So, I forgot, what time is it?"

"Aren't you wearing a watch?"

"..."

"It's 11 o'clock in the morning."

"Great! And this is my grandson, your rival. Er, what's his name again?"

"You don't even remember your own grandson's name?"

"..."

"Look, I came here because you said you'd give me a free Pokémon. Let's just get to that part."

"The Pokémon are on this table. You can pick one of these three."

The boy reaches for one of the Pokéballs on the table.

"Oh! So you want Charmander, the fire Pokémon!"

"So that's what this is?" He picks up the Pokéball and looks at it. "It still amazes me that Pokémon can fit in these things." He turns to Professor Oak. "Yeah, I'll take this one."

"Great! Would you like to give a nickname to Charmander?"

"Um, I don't know. That hadn't crossed my mind yet. I don't know, maybe I will. We'll see."

Professor Oak looks at the boy with fixed smile on his face.

"Okay... well, I'll be going now," the boy says and starts walking out of the lab. "Thanks for the Pokémon."

The Professor continues looking at the boy with the same fixed smile.

"Creepy..."

* * *

Jak hasn't gone far outside before Oak's grandson, Gary, yells out,

"Hey, stupid head!"

Jak turns around. "Stupid head?" he repeats quizzically. "Really? What are you, five?"

"I just got a Pokémon from gramps too! Let's battle!"

"Does immeasurably low IQ run in your family?"

Gary just stares at Jak like it's inevitable that he will battle him.

"Oh, what the heck. Let's do this."

Jak presses the release button on his Pokéball, and his new Charmander zaps out of the little metallic ball like a bolt of lightning.

"Squirtle, go!" Gary yells and releases his Pokémon.

"Eh..." Jak sighs, "why do so many people feel like they have to yell, 'Go! Whatever!' when they send out a Pokémon? It gets old quickly."

"Squirtle, tackle!" Gary's little blue Pokémon launches itself at Jak's Charmander. The Charmander doesn't move and gets knocked to the ground.

"Oh man, this is gonna take some work," Jak groans and puts his hand to his head. The Squirtle jumps back off of the Charmander. The Charmander gets up and stands there. It turns and looks at Jak.

"What?" the boy says. "What are you looking at me for? Go fight that Squirtle!"

"Squirtle, tackle!" The Squirtle tackles the Charmander again.

"Ugh..." Jak groans. This battle is clearly over.

"Haha!" Gary shouts. "Pay up, loser!"

"Pay up? Are you nuts? We never agreed that this would be a match for money!"

Gary just looks at Jak, expecting money.

"Forget that! I'm outta here!" The boy raises his Pokéball and presses the retrieve button. Charmander zaps back into the ball. "See ya," he says, putting the Pokéball in his carrying case and walking away.

* * *

"Charmander?" The boy's new Charmander cocks its head to the side and looks at him.

"Alright, look, Charmander," the boy says, seated on a fallen tree, "we need to talk about fighting tactics."

"Charmander?"

"Yeah, that's what you are. Good job. Now listen, are you gonna need me to tell you specifically every little thing to do in a fight?"

"Charmander?"

"Ehh..." the boy sighs. "Look, instead of learning a bunch of command words from me, why don't you just learn how to fight depending on the situation? I mean, you're in there, in the thick of it, and you'll be able to react much faster if you think on your own instead of relying on me."

"Charmander?"

"Ehhh. Okay, here's the deal. I command you to fight using your own thought and instinct unless I shout out a command, in which case I want you to follow that command. Got it?"

"Charmander!"

"Haha! Yes!" the boy shouts happily. "We're making progress!"

* * *

"So long, Pallet Town!" the boy says as he starts down Route 1. "Haha! Finally!" he laughs joyfully. He can't help but smile as he dwells upon the thought that the entire world is his to explore.

"Tall grass—heh!" he laughs. "I've never been allowed to go out in the tall grass before, but now I've got a Pokémon!" He enters the thick, tall grass, and before long he comes out of it and back onto a path. "Well, that was disappointing."

Soon he enters another patch of tall grass.

"Whoah! A wild Pidgey!" he whispers to himself, eyes wide with delight. He crouches down behind some thick foliage and peers out at the bird Pokémon. "Snap! I don't have a Pokéball!" The Pidgey suddenly looks right at him. "Oh crap," he mutters and begins to back away. "Nice Pidgey... nice Pidgey... I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Pidgey!" The Pidgey takes to the air and flaps ferociously toward the boy.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" he shouts and starts running away through the thick grass.

"Rattata!"

"Not another one!"

The boy named Jak continues to sprint through the tall grass, now being chased by both a bird Pokémon and a mouse Pokémon.

"Pidgey!"

"Rattata!"

"Craaaaaaaaaaaap!"

* * *

Far in the northeast of the Kanto region, there is the sound of heavy breathing and loud footsteps in a cave.

"Hurry, Butterfree!" shouts a man who is breathing heavily and running through the cave.

"Butterfree!" cries the bug Pokémon, emitting a glowing light to illuminate the dark path.

Suddenly the entire cave begins to shake, and large rocks start falling all around.

"Butterfree!" the man cries.

"Butterfree!" the bug Pokémon cries out in return. The man looks up just as a large boulder comes crashing down upon him.

A red and white ball flies at the Butterfree, and with a white flash of light the bug Pokémon disappears into the ball, which then falls onto the ground. The cave becomes pitch black.

"Good job, Onix." A man walks slowly up to the Pokéball on the ground. A faint glow is coming from something behind him.

"Unngh..." groans the man crushed under a boulder. "Who are you?" he chokes out.

The other man picks up the Pokéball with the Butterfree inside.

"Who am I?" he asks with a slightly amused tone. "Why should I tell that to a dead man?" Upon saying this he begins to laugh loudly.


	2. Chapter 2

"Craaaaaaaap!"

"Rattata!"

"Pidgey!"

The boy named Jak dashes through the tall grass along Route 1, a Rattata and a Pidgey following close behind. Suddenly Jak's foot finds a root sticking out of the ground, and it sends him sprawling face-first to the ground. Expecting a torrent of scratching, pecking, and biting from the creatures that would surely be on top of him now, Jak curls up into a ball, covering his face with his arms.

"Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaah!" he screams. "Aaaah—what?" he peeks through his arms, looking for the Pokémon that had been chasing him. Finding nothing there, he sits up and looks round about. "Huh? Where'd they go?" he says curiously to himself. He continues to look around, somewhat dumbfounded, until his mind lands upon it—he's no longer in the tall grass.

"No way," he says in disbelief. "Is this real? They didn't follow me because they won't come out of the tall grass? Bahahahaha! That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard!" He stands to his feet and dusts himself off. "I mean, really, I landed only about a foot outside of the tall grass! They had me! But they're too afraid to come out of that grass! Bahahahaha! Oh, this is marvelous. Just marvelous."

This new revelation gets Jak to thinking. He decides that there absolutely must be some way to exploit this weakness of wild Pokémon. He's not sure just what it is yet, but he's definitely going to think about it.

"Hmm," he says to himself, his hand resting thoughtfully on his chin, "I wonder if I could see wild Pokémon in the tall grass while I'm _not_ in the tall grass." He eyes the tall grass next to him and then starts walking alongside it, testing his theory.

"Hmm, it's really hard to see in there. Maybe you really do have to be in the thick of it to find any Pokémon." As Jak is walking along, peering into the foliage, a figure approaches him from behind.

"Hey, are you a trainer?"

"Huh?" Jak turns around and finds in front of him a young boy, probably eleven or twelve years old. "Oh, yeah, I guess I am."

"Do you want to battle?" the young boy says.

"Oh, ah, um, not right now actually. I'm kinda in the middle of something right now." The young boy looks crestfallen. "Ah! Well, hey!" Jak says, scrambling. "I'm actually just not very good. I just started as a trainer, and, well, I think I need to go practice a lot before I fight against any trainers." And this really was the truth. After Jak's quick defeat to Gary, he wanted to work on Charmander's fighting skills against wild Pokémon before he fought against any more trainers. Of course he avoided mentioning that he abhorred the thought of losing to an eleven-year-old and didn't want to take that chance. "Well, anyway, I'll see you later," Jak says nervously, walking away from the young boy who is looking down sadly at his shoes.

Jak let's out a long sigh once out of the hearing range of the young boy. "Man, what's with that kid? You'd think I ruined Christmas or something from the look on his face! And why's an eleven-year-old out here battling anyway? Isn't that dangerous?" Jak sighs again. "Whatever." He then resumes walking along the edge of the tall grass, trying to catch sight of any wild Pokémon within. After about twenty minutes of this, Jak still hasn't seen anything.

"Wait what's this?" he whispers. He has just spotted a rustling in the tall grass. He watches the moving grass intently. But soon the rustling stops. "Nothing!" Jak cries with disappointment. Sighing, he sits down on the mown field of Route 1. He leans back on his hands and looks up into the sky. It's a warm sunny day, and puffy white clouds float lazily through the blue expanse. "Well, this is still pretty great," Jak says out loud to himself. "What a life. Walking around through this beautiful world with nothing to do but catch Pokémon and make 'em fight. How did I get so lucky?" There's a nice wind in the air today, too, and Jak is entirely set on enjoying it.

* * *

"That'll be 600 Pokédollars."

"Here you go."

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Nope, that's it. Thanks."

"Thank you!"

Jak walks out the door of the Pokémart in Viridian City.

"Alright! Now I've got Pokéballs!" he shouts triumphantly. "I'm gonna catch me some Pokémon," he says, a devilish grin spreading across his face.

It is now the second day of Jak's adventure that started with the acquirement of his first Pokémon. Although the sixteen-year-old novice trainer seemed to lack any direction on the day he set out from his home in Pallet Town, today he seems to have a plan firmly set in his mind.

Upon arriving near the edge of some tall grass along Route 1, Jak stops and takes out a Pokéball. With a kind of popping noise, Jak's Charmander appears next to him.

"Alright, Charms McGee, let's do this," Jak says to his little orange Pokémon.

"Charmander!" the Pokémon replies with a nod.

"And remember, we always stay at the edge of the tall grass. That way, if we get in trouble, we can just jump back out, and everything's cool. Got it?"

"Charmander!"

And so Jak and his Charmander enter the tall grass.

"I didn't have to do much to find those wild Pokémon from yesterday—they found me!" Jak says. "So, I figure if we walk through here long enough, something will attack us—these wild Pokémon are vicious little buggers—and then, Bam! We'll catch it!"

"Charmander!"

"Exactly."

The duo continues plodding through the thick foliage, keen on their mission. Before long, Jak's theory is proven sound, and a wild Pidgey appears.

"We-he-hell now, what do we have here?" Jak says. "I wonder if you're the same one from yesterday." Thinking back to all that he's ever heard about catching Pokémon, which is not very much, Jak seems to recall that one has to tire out a wild Pokémon first before using a Pokéball to catch it. "Charmander! Knock its lights out!" he shouts, pointing at the bird Pokémon.

"Charmander!" the tiny orange lizard replies, and charges at the Pidgey.

"Pidgey!" squawks the bird, flapping its wings furiously at the Charmander.

"Now, let's see how he does," Jak says coolly, his eyes fixed on his Charmander.

A gust of wind, almost like a small tornado, issues forth from the Pidgey's wings directly at the Charmander. The orange lizard dodges to the side of it and continues charging toward the bird. Before the Pidgey has time to react, Jak's Charmander is on top of it, giving it a pounding with its paws.

"Beautiful!" Jak shouts. "Now it's my turn," he says, pulling out one of his new Pokéballs. Jak takes aim and throws the ball at the downed Pidgey. The Pokéball hits the Pidgey on the head and bounces off, rolling to a stop a few feet away. "Huh?" Jak says in bewilderment. "Isn't it supposed to zap it or something? Did I buy a dud?!" he shouts. "No, wait," he pauses and thinks back again to the miniscule amount of Pokémon knowledge he has stored up over the years. "Maybe you have to press a button first." Jak takes out another Pokéball while Charmander continues to pound the squawking Pidgey. "That thing's taking a beating," Jak says with some surprise. He then presses the button in between the red and white halves of the Pokéball and hurls it at the Pidgey. The ball opens just before striking the wild Pokémon, and with a zap the Pidgey is sucked into it.

"Bam!" Jak shouts with an exultant fist-pump. His Charmander looks around confused, wondering what happened to his opponent. "Hey, great job, Charmander," Jak says, kneeling next to his Pokémon and placing his hand on its head. "You were a real champ there. Like some sort of insane cage fighter or something."

"Charmander!" the lizard cries happily.

Jak picks up the Pokéball with the Pidgey inside. Gripping it in his palm, he looks out across the open sky of Route 1. At this moment he feels very glad to be alive.

* * *

"You should be glad to be alive, doctor!" bellows a gruff voice.

"I am! I am!" pleads a skinny man in a white lab coat.

"Then what's the problem?" returns the gruff voice, belonging to a large man wearing a grey suit. "We give you a place to stay, food to eat, and you get to study in your field of choice as much as you want! With state of the art equipment! What more can you ask for?"

"But," whimpers the scientist, "and, don't get me wrong, I'm so appreciative for all your organization has done for me. But," he stammers, "I… I just don't know if I can keep doing your research now that I know what you'll do with it." At this point the skinny man gasps under the realization of what he has just said.

"Ho?" intones the grey suited man. "And just what _are_ we going to do with it?" He says, leaning toward the scientist so that their faces are just inches apart.

"Well, I, uh, I," stammers the scientist, "I think you, uh, well, you're going to, well, you're going to steal people's Pokémon." A moment of silence hangs in the room.

"Hahahaha!" bellows the larger man, rearing his head back in laughter. Then leaning in again toward the scientist, he grins, "That's exactly right, doctor. And you can either get on board with us, or we can steal all your Pokémon too." At this the skinny man gulps. "After all," continues the gruff voice, "that's what Team Rocket does."

* * *

Back in Pallet Town, Professor Oak is making a sandwich.

"Hmm, pastrami on rye, Swiss, pickles, and… blueberries! Brilliant!" Oak cries. "I shall call you… the Blue Emperor!"

"What is Professor Oak working on?" one of the Professor's aides asks a colleague, looking across the lab at the Professor.

"I don't know, Ed," replies the other man, "but you can bet it's something that will change Pokémon history!"

"Hmm," the aide nods in reverent agreement.


End file.
